Logan
When classes ended, I hurried back to my room. With each step, my mind outran my feet by a thousand paces. I couldn’t wait to see Delilah again. She had brought me back to life.
I locked the door, because the last thing I wanted was Josh popping his head in. I was a romantic, and romance was hard for some people to understand. I will never forget the way Mom reacted when she found my Sophie folder. And when she finally did speak to me, days later, she’d spat the words out like they left a foul taste in her mouth. “Don’t ever let me find anything like that on your computer again.” And that was that.
I put on my headphones to shut out the noise of people in the hallway. Then I opened a web browser and started my search. Unlike last year, when the Sophie fog had made even the simple act of typing an ordeal, my fingers flew across the keyboard.
And boy, did I learn a lot about my girl.
I found her Instagram easily enough, but Facebook told me her full name: Delilah Laura Wong. She had a Chinese name: Shu Ping. It meant peaceful book, which suited her. She was an old soul, like me.
Goodreads told me her favorite books—upmarket suspense novels by someone named Tan Jing Xu. I bought all of the author’s books, picturing Delilah’s fingers, long and slim, caressing the pages, her index fingernail caught ever so lightly between her teeth (she was a nail-biter, I was sure) as her deep, brown eyes took in the words. I imagined her resting her head on my chest as she read. What would her hair smell of? Roses? Jasmine? Maybe frangipani. Definitely some sort of flower.
I wasn’t expecting Google to have much on Delilah, but a quick search rewarded me with a whole bunch of news articles. Her father was an oil rig engineer who’d died in an offshore explosion large enough to be caught on satellite, leaving her with a trust fund from his life insurance. Mom worked at some giant tech company in Silicon Valley, which meant she was out of the house more often than in. They lived ten miles away from school. Delilah did not board; the life insurance money was only enough to enroll her at Draycott as a day student.
My heart hurt at the thought of what Delilah had been through. I knew the sort of loss she’d had, the hole it gouged in your entire being, so big and gaping you didn’t think you could possibly continue, while everybody else kept on living and expecting you to limp along like you didn’t just have a part of you ripped out. But I got it. I was the only one who really got Delilah.
So, on to Instagram and Snapchat. Back in her old school, Delilah was an outgoing girl. There were hundreds of pictures of her laughing with friends, their skinny, tween-girl arms twined around one another’s necks. Aisha was in quite a few of them. Delilah looked so different from the pale, silent girl who turned up at Draycott that I sat there, staring at my computer for a long time, mourning the death of Happy Delilah.
I understood transformations all too well. The version of me right now was nothing like the version I was during freshman year. Sometimes my idiot friends would repost some old photos and tag me in them, and it always hurt to see what I looked like at the time—lanky, all elbows and knees. It had all changed when I met Sophie. She was a sophomore then and was the most beautiful thing I had ever come across. She’d bewitched me. I knew I had to change myself to be worthy of her, and I did. I hit the gym hard. I choked down protein shakes. I tried out for various sports teams and made friends with the right people. It took about a year to leave that skinny, awkward kid behind. And it was all worth it.
Delilah’s transformation was a different one. A heartbreaking one, but maybe Happy Delilah wasn’t really gone. Maybe she was just hiding under all the layers of grief. My purpose was clear as day. I was meant to restore the old Delilah.
Too bad she’d largely stopped posting on social media weeks ago. On one hand, I liked that she wasn’t like every other kid our age, faking everything on social media, desperately gobbling up every Like they could get their hands on. On the other hand, it made my job so much harder than it needed to be.
As I paced about my room, scratching the side of my neck with increasing ferocity, Sophie’s voice floated through my head.
I could see her plain as day, her lips curled into a nice-but-mostly-naughty smile. Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy, Lolo. You must know that by now.
She was right, as usual. Shame on me, getting frustrated so easily. Since when did love come easy? I had to figure shit out. Delilah may not be the type to publicly check in at every location she visited, but others sure were. Others like Aisha.
Aisha’s Instagram was a cacophony of selfies, smiling faces, kissy faces, long legs being showcased at a million different angles. Aisha had nice legs. Aisha also liked to announce her whereabouts to the world at all possible moments.
@Aishazzam checked in at Freddy’s.
Come hungry, leave happy! #FreddysBurgers #PiggingOut
@Aishazzam checked in at AMC Draycott.
Movie night with the girls! #PopcornTime
I scrolled through nearly a year’s worth of banality—if only Delilah knew the lengths I was going to for her sake—before striking gold:
@Aishazzam checked in at 1876 Woolworth Dr.
Sleepover with the BFF! #JustLikeWhenWeWereKids
And there was a picture of her and Delilah in matching pajamas.
I stole out of the dorms that same night, climbing out my window and keeping in the shadows until I was off school grounds, then I ran. And it felt. So. Good. I was Lazarus. I was alive again. Everything was amazing. I wanted to fly through the sky, shouting, but I managed to keep my excitement inside.
It took a bit of effort, but I managed to make myself sit down when I caught the bus to Woolworth Drive instead of pacing around and freaking the other passengers out. Delilah’s neighborhood was nice; modest but respectable. Trimmed lawns and lush trees lined the sidewalk. I stopped across the street from number 1876, my throat sandpapery and dry, a fist squeezing my heart, because there she was: my Delilah, sitting in her room on the second floor braiding her hair, her curtains wide open, putting her on display for all the world to see. Really, she should be more careful. She was so luminescent, she could easily attract some creep’s attention.
My heart squeezed tighter at the thought of some asshole taking advantage of Delilah’s naivety. It’s okay, I told myself. It’s fine. It’s why I’m here, to protect her. I will never let anything bad happen to her.
Never.